Building to the Sky and the Height Paradox_Crimson Publishers

 In the wake of the catastrophic event of September 11, 2001 that brought down the World Trade Center buildings in New York, naysayers hastily predicted that it marked the end of future skyscraper construction. Engineers and architects who knew the history of tall buildings in cities, however, knew that these urban edifices did not surface fortuitously, but rather were essential to address the problems of increased human habitation as the world population continued to grow and people were moving from rural areas to cities. During the presentations of papers on tall buildings in different settings, I faced critics of tall buildings and tried to get across to them the logic behind the unrelenting development of tall buildings in the absence of alternate viable solutions to the problem of increasing high density in cities. Admittedly, tall buildings have a few shortcomings. Yet, there is no reason urban sprawl should be created or encouraged horizontally with its many associated drawbacks when the vast and empty sky is available to generate a vertical scale of cities. Many tall buildings including supertall (greater than 300m) and mega tall (greater than 600 m) have been built in the first two decades of the 21st century. According to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) and the December 25, 2017/January 1, 2018 issue of Time magazine, 144 skyscrapers in cities measuring 200 m and over were built in 2017, more than any other year in history. Tall building construction has been a global phenomenon for the last few decades and the race for height continues. But what maximum height can be attained by a skyscraper? Is sky the limit?

Read more about this article: https://crimsonpublishers.com/acet/fulltext/ACET.000560.php

For more articles in our journal: https://crimsonpublishers.com/acet/